On 6 June Khotinsky district court in Sochi refused to consider a suit for defamation brought by the local police department against the blogger Roman Shikarev for a series of negative statements about the police on his Twitter account.

On 6 June Judge Vladimir Sidorov handed down the judgment in the case. The full text of the judgment will be available on 10 June, Aleksandr Popkov, a lawyer from Agora who is representing the interests of Roman Shikarev.

The Sochi police department considered that the tweets by Roman Shikarev published by him on 23-25 February 2014 do not correspond with reality and harm the department’s reputation. The police department sued Roman Shikarev in the Khostinsky district court in Sochi, seeking a judgment that would require Shikarev to refute his own statements.